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J.D. Vance Appeals to the ‘Cast Aside and Forgotten’ In RNC Speech


BY: M.D. KITTLE | JULY 18, 2024

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2024/07/18/j-d-vance-appeals-to-the-cast-aside-and-forgotten-in-rnc-speech/

GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance speaks at Republican Party Convention.

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MILWAUKEE — The man who would be vice president formally introduced himself to a jubilant Republican National Convention on Wednesday evening in Wisconsin — and to voters nationwide. And he had a very compelling story to tell. 

Sen. James David “J.D.” Vance, R-Ohio, former President Donald Trump’s freshly minted running mate, accepted the nomination and addressed his fellow Republicans, his fellow Americans. What many heard was a guy who, despite being a millennial millionaire, shares an all-too-common upbringing in impoverished rural America. Vance, the author of the best-selling Hillbilly Elegy, literally wrote the book on it.

At 39, Vance is one of the youngest vice presidential candidates in American history, nearly 40 years Trump’s junior. The significant age spread is by design in an election year where, once again, two elderly men — at least at the moment — are the major party standard bearers on the ballot. 

From Humble Beginnings

By many measures, Vance is the epitome of the American Dream. He grew up in poverty, a “family tradition” in rust-belt Middletown, Ohio, and in the Appalachian region of eastern Kentucky. The son of a drug-addicted mother and a father who left him, Vance, as they say, rose above his circumstances. He went to college on the G.I. Bill after serving in the Marines and the Iraq War. He earned his law degree from Yale and made a very comfortable living in venture capital. Vance’s bleak memoir was made into a movie in 2020, a couple of years before his successful Senate run. 

“Never in my wildest imagination could I have believed that I would be standing here tonight,” Vance told the thousands of conventiongoers assembled at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum and the millions more watching across the country. 

God and Mamaw

While his parents were absent from much of his childhood, Vance said he had God. 

And Mamaw. 

The senator’s “guardian angel” grandmother raised him. She was tough as nails, Vance said, a Christian woman who loved the Lord nearly as much as she loved the “F word.” Mamaw once told her grandson that if she ever caught him again hanging out with a kid who was a notorious drug dealer in town, she’d run the boy over with her car. 

“And she said, J.D., no one would ever find out about it,” Vance recalled. The convention hall erupted in laughter, then echoed with a chant of “Mamaw.” The GOPers love them some Mamaw. They seemed pretty taken by her successful grandson too. 

The Republican vice-presidential candidate said he made it out of the generational poverty that has trapped so many of his family and friends. He escaped through hard work, with the help of his guardian angel, and by the grace of God, Vance said. Every now and then, he said, he’ll get a call from a relative back home asking if he remembered this person or that. As a face in time fills his mind, Vance said he’s often told that the old neighbor or schoolmate has died of a drug overdose. 

‘Failed and Failed’

“As usual, America’s ruling class wrote the check. Communities like mine paid the price,” he said. He then took aim at the members of said ruling class — Democrats and Republicans — who have over the last generation-plus enriched themselves while average Americans have suffered. The people on the list of D.C. elites include Republican President George W. Bush and Democrat Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. None more, Vance stressed, than career politician Biden, hungry for another term in a rematch with Trump. 

“For decades, that divide between the few — with their power and comfort in Washington — and the rest of us only widened. From Iraq to Afghanistan, from the financial crisis to the Great Recession, from open borders to stagnating wages, the people who governed this country have failed and failed again,” he said. 

There is, of course, according to Vance, one exception to the governing class rule: businessman Donald Trump, who in 2016 ran on nothing short of a revolution to “drain the swamp.” Vance wasn’t on board the Trump train then, blasting Trump as “reprehensible” during his first run. Vance has had a change of heart since those early days, becoming one of the more ardent defenders of Trump’s vision of “making America Great Again.” Biden’s curious victory in 2020 put the MAGA agenda on hold. Trump’s new running mate sounds like he is champing at the bit to help the former president bring it back and make the case, particularly in the critical swing states, for a return to Trumpenomics and homeland sanity. 

“It’s about the auto worker in Michigan, wondering why out-of-touch politicians are destroying your jobs,” Vance said. “It’s about the factory worker in Wisconsin, who makes things with their hands and is proud of American craftsmanship.”  

“It’s about the energy worker in Pennsylvania and Ohio who doesn’t understand why Joe Biden is willing to buy energy from tinpot dictators across the world when he could buy it from his own citizens right here in our own country,” Vance hammered. 

Trump’s running mate wasn’t simply speaking to the party; he was attempting to connect with what he called the “cast aside and forgotten.” In the tradition of Trump. 

The Federalist’s Mark Hemingway, also covering the convention with wife and Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway, told me in a “Federalist Radio Hour” podcast that the GOP establishment types aren’t happy with the Vance VP pick, a good sign Trump made the right call.

Meanwhile, Democrats and their corporate media public-relations firms have spent the past couple of days trying to diminish Trump’s lieutenant, as the corporate media are wont to do. The Atlantic’s Stuart Stevens lamented Ohio transforming from a swing state to a dependable red. He decried the Buckeye State’s abandonment of weak-kneed RINOs for Trumpicans like Vance. 

“But don’t make the mistake of thinking this transformation was the result of a hostile takeover; that implies there was a fight. The truth is that the old guard surrendered to forces contrary to what it had espoused as lifelong values,” Stevens whined. 

The old guard, Vance tried to convey to voters, is part of why this republic is in so much trouble. 

‘The American Story’ 

David Arredondo, former chairman of the Lorain County Republican Party, part of the Cleveland metropolitan area, told me Vance brings pluses and minuses to the ticket, but a lot more positives than negatives. 

“He checks all the boxes,” Arredondo said. Vance is young and a veteran. And Vance’s experience with poverty and family drug addiction, Arredondo said, makes him relatable to voters billionaire Trump needs to win the election. 

“It’s the American story of the person who started from nothing and became great,” he said. 

David Arredondo, former chairman of the Lorain County Republican Party

As the former county GOP chairman noted, Vance won a lot of Ohio hearts and minds following the devastating train derailment in East Palestine in early 2023. He was there. So was Trump, handing out bottled water and standing with a broken community as Biden and his competence-challenged transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, were slow to show up to the conservative-leaning community near the border of Pennsylvania. Biden waited a year. He was not well received.

“Vance’s quick response to the train derailment and advocacy for local residents landed him in the spotlight and earned him a front row seat in the news for months. Trump joined Vance and other Ohio lawmakers on Feb. 22, 2023, to shake the hands of local residents and distribute water, food and other supplies to those desperately in need of necessities,” Fox News reported shortly after Trump announced Vance as his second-in-command. 

Vance closed with a vow to the “cast aside and forgotten.” 

“To the people of Middletown, Ohio, and all the forgotten communities in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and every corner of our nation, I promise you this: I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from,” he said. 

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.

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The Real Threat to the U.S. Economy Isn’t Election Integrity, It’s Joe Biden


BY: M.D. KITTLE | MAY 06, 2024

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2024/05/06/the-real-threat-to-the-u-s-economy-isnt-election-integrity-its-joe-biden/

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yell addressing the press in India.

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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen last week warned that “threats to democracy” will imperil U.S. economic growth. Yellen’s admonishment is a less-than-veiled finger wag at former President Donald Trump and anyone who would dare question the official lie that the 2020 election was “one of the most secure elections in history.” 

The real threat to the economy is Joe Biden, his buffoonish treasury secretary, and the rest of the capitalism-crushing useful idiots in this dangerous administration.

As Democrat Party public-relations firm the Associated Press reported, Yellen used “economic data” in her address Friday in Arizona to “paint a picture of how disregard for America’s democratic processes and institutions can cause economic stagnation for decades.”

“Yellen, taking a rare step toward to [sic] the political arena, never mentioned Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, by name in her speech for the McCain Institute’s Sedona Forum, but she hinted at the former president’s potential impact if he regains the White House,” the AP’s Fatima Hussein and Josh Boak propagandized in a shared byline. 

The former Federal Reserve chairwoman, who has routinely injected herself into the “political arena,” used the speech to “serve as a sort of warning for business leaders who may overlook Trump’s disregard for modern democratic norms because they prefer the former president’s vision of achieving growth by slashing taxes and stripping away regulations.”

Yellen’s comments, and the AP article marketing them, are as nakedly political as they are hilariously absurd. Trump’s assertions that the 2020 election was rigged — by shattered election laws in swing states, unprecedented infusions of leftist third-party cash in election administration and election interference by the same rotten-to-the-core corporate media peddling Yellen’s assault on democracy diatribe — are more dangerous than Bidenomics? Americans and economic data disagree. 

‘Transitory’ Regret

Yellen’s comments preceded Gallup’s latest Economy and Personal Finance poll showing Americans’ trust in Biden’s leadership at an all-time low.  The poll, conducted April 1-22, finds just 38 percent of respondents say they have a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of confidence that Biden would do or recommend the right course for the economy. Former President Donald Trump, the Republican opponent Democrats and their pals in the Deep State are trying to throw in jail, is polling at 46 percent on the economic question. 

Understandably, Americans are downright cranky about the shaky state of their personal economy, compliments of the Biden administration’s prosperity-crippling policies.

“With Americans less optimistic about the state of the U.S. economy than they have been in recent months and concern about inflation persisting, their confidence in President Joe Biden to recommend or do the right thing for the economy is among the lowest Gallup has measured for any president since 2001,” Gallup reported Monday. 

Over the past three years, Americans learned to be confident that Biden would do the wrong thing. And his bungling treasury secretary has provided plenty of political cover. What is stunning is that a majority of Americans (57 percent) until 2022 had confidence in the Dementarian’s management of the economy. Only President George W. Bush had a lower rating, with a meager 34 percent confidence number at the end of his second term amid the real estate bubble-burst recession. 

As inflation began to climb in 2021, economics genius Yellen described the soaring cost of things as a “transitory” problem. She doubled and tripled down as inflation ballooned to levels not seen since the real Great Recession of the 1980s, caused in large part by the policies of a lousy president Biden is often compared to: Jimmy Carter. 

Yellen earlier this year offered her “regret” for saying what was patently false. It didn’t take a PhD from Yale and a University of California, Berkeley professor to know that higher prices were — and remain — here to stay under Bidenomics. 

“I regret saying it was transitory. It has come down. But I think transitory means a few weeks or months to most people,” Yellen said during an interview with Fox Business in March.

No Sale

Inflation has come up since Yellen expressed her regret. Soaring mortgage rates have priced Americans, particularly young families, out of home ownership. The housing crisis could be the “death knell for America’s middle class,” Newsweek warned in December.

American workers have seen any income growth devoured by rising costs for everything from gas to Happy Meals. Yes, Democrats’ massive expansion of government regulations on business — especially small business, climate change cultism, foreign policy debacles, and unsustainable spending — has everything to do with why middle-income earners are feeling the pain and increasingly frustrated.

Just as frustrating, you have the accomplice media covering for the bungler-in-chief, telling Americans what they’re experiencing is simply not real. The New York Times’ gag-worthy piece last month claiming Biden has a positive story to tell on the economy is political propaganda of the most ludicrous order. No one should be surprised about such absurd water-carrying by a Biden-backing corporate media that has pushed Democrats’ perfect election narrative despite Democrats’ many, many imperfections. 

Now the tone-deaf treasury secretary wants to tell American businesses that tax-cutting, “election denier” Trump is more of a threat to the U.S. economy than the economic menace that is Joe Biden. America isn’t buying what Yellen is selling. They can’t afford to. 

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.

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Democrats Promise To Save ‘Democracy’ By Destroying It


BY: DAVID HARSANYI | JANUARY 18, 2024

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2024/01/18/democrats-promise-to-save-democracy-by-destroying-it/

Philipp Foltz: Pericles famous funeral oration in front of the Assembly.

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Granted, I’m not a professional political consultant, but I’m starting to get the sense that the Democrats’ 2024 focus on “saving democracy” suffers somewhat from their constant efforts to demolish every basic norm of constitutional governance.

Then again, maybe we just need to define our terms, since “democracy” has been stripped of any useful meaning. The word certainly doesn’t signify adherence to the Constitution — a document barely, if ever, mentioned by the contemporary left for obvious reasons.

Indeed, for the past eight or so years, many legal and traditional institutions of American governance — the Electoral College, the filibuster, two senators in every state, states, open discourse, the Supreme Court, and so on — have been framed as nemeses of “democracy” if they happen to temporarily benefit Republicans. Virtually every political setback, in fact, has been transformed into an existential threat to the foundations of “democracy.” Anyone with conventional conservative views, especially social ones, has been reimagined as MAGA extremists or “semi-fascists” or “Christofascists.”

Even when originalist justices, the most scrupulous devotees of American “democracy” in the country, strengthen majoritarianism, as they did handing the abortion issue back to voters where it belonged, Democrats have a collective fainting spell over the future of “democracy.”

Democrats are positive that asking someone to prove an ID before voting portends the rise of the Fourth Reich, but they have no problem pressuring private companies to censor political speech, ignoring the Supreme Court, unilaterally breaking millions of private contracts to buy votes, using executive power to circumvent the will of voters, and throwing the leading opposition candidate off ballots.

If you’re convinced that George W. Bush stole an election or that Donald Trump was “selected” by a foreign dictator, your griping about “denialism” holds no weight.

Do you know what’s definitely authoritarian, though? Plotting to undermine civilian control of the military. It’s one of the big ones.

NBC News reports this week that “a network of public interest groups and lawmakers, nervous about former President Trump’s potential return to power, is quietly devising plans to foil any effort on his part to pressure the U.S. military to carry out his political agenda.”

Dear lord, voters elect the commander-in-chief because of a political agenda. It is literally the military’s job to implement the democratic will of the people. It’s right there in the Constitution. It’s the point.

Invading Iraq was a political decision, not one made by a Star Chamber, but by the president and senators like Joe Biden. Leaving Afghanistan was a political decision, made by a president who promised the public he would do so if elected. The decision to take the Houthis off the global terror list was a political decision. As was the decision to grant Iran access to billions and to send Palestinian terror groups hundreds of millions of dollars.

Now, if voters are unhappy with these decisions, they are free to support someone else the next time around. But if a bunch of unelected right-wing “public interest groups” and lawmakers, nervous about Biden’s failed — but completely legal — foreign policy decisions, formed a cabal within the government to “foil” him, it would not be strengthening “democracy.”

Then again, you remember when Gen. Mark Milley made two phone calls to our top geopolitical foes in China and promised to give them a heads-up should the United States attack? That was another clear-cut subversion of civilian authority over the military. Nothing about those calls comports with “democracy.” The opposite. Yet Milley is regarded as a hero of the resistance.

And you probably remember “Anonymous,” as well. The “senior Trump administration official” who published that overwrought op-ed in The New York Times contending that senior staffers secretly schemed to undercut Trump to protect the American people. “I work for the president,” wrote Miles Taylor, “but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.”

Political appointees who join a shadow government to “thwart” the president’s decisions — not because he’s been engaged in any unconstitutional or illegal acts, but because they disagreed with him — are definitely not the heroes of “democracy” they imagine themselves. (Taylor is on TV these days warning that Trump might “turn off” the internet if he’s elected for a second term. Joke’s on him, though, since Trump already did so when he overturned net neutrality.)

David Axelrod, who worked for a president who acted as if he were a sovereign, contends that if Republican primary voters select Trump as the nominee, it “would be a stunning rebuke of the rules, norms, laws and institutions upon which our democracy is founded and would have profound implications for the future.”

Now, a lot of that sounds like projection to me. Sometimes, you get the sense that just maybe all this “democracy” talk is a cynical strategy to hold onto power.

But let’s say it’s true. Every illiberal precedent Democrats set in their own alleged efforts to save our “democracy” from Trump will also have profound implications for the future. Trump will leave us one day. Democrats’ constant attacks on governing norms won’t. 

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, a nationally syndicated columnist, a Happy Warrior columnist at National Review, and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. Follow him on Twitter, @davidharsanyi.

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Sean Davis Op-ed: Was 9/11 The Beginning of the End of the American Empire?


BY: SEAN DAVIS | SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/09/11/was-9-11-the-beginning-of-the-end-of-the-american-empire/

rubble from the twin towers on 9/11

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Was 9/11 the beginning of the end for America? In the 22 years since the attacks, I’ve begun to worry that the answer to that question is “yes.”

It spawned the worst and most destructive foreign policy in the country’s history. The government response to 9/11 birthed the constitutional abomination that is the modern warrantless surveillance state. The Patriot Act enabled the government to weaponize its vast resources against its own people.

Bush’s failed foreign policy led directly to Obama’s presidency, and indirectly to Biden’s, both of which are responsible for diminishing the U.S. at home and abroad, militarily and economically. After two failed forever wars that wouldn’t have happened without 9/11, our government is now desperately trying to foment a potentially nuclear forever war against Russia.

Meanwhile, all the massive surveillance powers claimed by the U.S. after 9/11 are being ruthlessly deployed against American political enemies of the regime via the most insidious censorship-industrial complex the world has ever seen.

And then there’s the crippling legacy of debt enabled by America’s response to 9/11. Not content to spend trillions on poorly thought-out invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, our leaders spent as thoughtlessly at home, creating insane amounts of new entitlements, while doing nothing to put the country on a sound financial footing.

And where are we today? The ruling political party is criminalizing its opposition and attempting to throw its top political opponent and his supporters in prison, all under the guise of “democracy.”

While the national unity in the days after the towers fell was unfortunately fleeting, the changes to the country, its laws, and its leaders were not. Perhaps there’s no better example of this than watching the man who scoffed during a presidential debate at the notion of America engaging in global “nation-building” suddenly declare that it was America’s mission to spread democracy to the ends of the earth with the “ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.”

It is clear that 9/11 spawned the most destructive foreign policy in modern American history. Instead of simply eliminating the Taliban and the terrorist havens in Afghanistan — an objective that had largely been achieved by the end of 2001 — the U.S. government insisted on grafting Western democracy onto the people of Afghanistan. Without 9/11, there is no 20-year forever war in Afghanistan that ends with China in control of an American airbase and the Taliban in control of tens of billions of dollars of American military equipment and weapons.

Without 9/11, there is also no war in Iraq, which morphed from a mission to eliminate weapons of mass destruction to a war to bring democracy to a hodgepodge of tribes, warring factions, and religious sects throughout the Middle East. Yes, I know the official original rationale was that the war was launched entirely to capture weapons that we now know didn’t exist, but without 9/11, there’s no “axis of evil” speech and resultant march to war to depose Saddam Hussein. In his 2003 State of the Union address on the eve of the Iraq invasion, Bush himself explicitly claimed that Hussein was personally working with al Qaeda, and warned that Hussein might give al Qaeda weapons they could use to attack the United States.

While Bush and Republicans rode the wave of post-9/11 sentiment to political victories in 2002 and 2004, the honeymoon was short-lived. By 2006, the country had largely soured on the war in Iraq amidst increasing casualties with little progress to show for them, paving the way for massive Democrat gains in Congress and a flip of both houses away from Republicans and into Democrat hands. And in the 2008 Democrat political primaries, it was Barack Obama who rode the anti-war wave onto the presidential ballot by defeating Hillary Clinton, who had supported Bush’s efforts in Iraq. A war-weary country that had soured on global military intervention at any cost overwhelmingly voted for the anti-war Obama over the pro-war John McCain.

Without 9/11, there is no war in Iraq, and without the war in Iraq, there’s likely no President Obama, no President Trump (whose opposition to the war in Iraq and America’s hamfisted approach to foreign policy propelled him into the presidency), and certainly no President Biden. When America was caught in the quicksand of Iraq in 2008, Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed the country of Georgia. When America revealed itself to be a paper tiger in Afghanistan after 20 years of failed efforts to turn it into a beacon of Western liberalism, Putin seized Crimea. The seeds of each of those events were sowed on 9/11.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration seized on the emergency created by 9/11 to construct the largest surveillance state in world history. Almost overnight, the Patriot Act was passed, the Department of Homeland Security was created, and warrantless wiretaps were authorized, and it didn’t take long before each of those tools was weaponized against the American people. At the time, only a handful of people voted against those laws, and they were roundly mocked for their opposition (Rep. Barbara Lee was the sole vote in the House against the Afghanistan war, while Sen. Russ Feingold was the lone vote against the Patriot Act in the Senate). The U.S. government ended up using tools that were intended to be used against foreign terrorists to instead spy on the political campaign of Donald Trump. Tools that were supposed to be used to monitor terrorist chatter overseas are right now being used to justify censorship of American citizens. And all of it is being done based on laws and institutions that were created in the wake of 9/11.

Finally, at no point did America’s representatives in Washington consider actually paying for the trillions and trillions of dollars that would be used to prosecute their failed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. No, those costs were financed by debt that will eventually have to be repaid by the grandchildren of those who authorized it. On top of that, Congress and the president heaped new entitlement on top of new entitlement, year after year. After the growth of the national debt finally began to slow in the 1990s following the end of the Cold War, the national debt nearly doubled during George W. Bush’s presidency, doubled again during Obama’s tenure, and will double again between 2016 and 2026 according to Office of Management and Budget projections. A country with this kind of debt growth is a country that is all but begging for hyperinflation and currency devaluation. It’s not a question of if, but when.

In hindsight, America’s response to 9/11 crippled the country. It birthed a disastrous foreign policy ideology that is still wreaking havoc on our own country, as well as the rest of the world. It spawned a surveillance state that threatens to rip the fabric of the country in two. It led to monstrous debt growth that will destroy the country financially from within if the trends are not quickly reversed.

We generally remember 9/11 as the day that the towers came down. I now worry that future historians will look back on it as the day that America started to fall.

Sean Davis is CEO and co-founder of The Federalist. He previously worked as an economic policy adviser to Gov. Rick Perry, as CFO of Daily Caller, and as chief investigator for Sen. Tom Coburn. He was named by The Hill as one of the top congressional staffers under the age of 35 for his role in spearheading the enactment of the law that created USASpending.gov. Sean received a BBA in finance from Texas Tech University and an MBA in finance and entrepreneurial management from the Wharton School. He can be reached via e-mail at sean@thefederalist.com.

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Sunsetting Federal Spending Programs Is A Fantastic Idea


BY: DAVID HARSANYI | FEBRUARY 09, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/02/09/sunsetting-federal-spending-programs-is-a-fantastic-idea/

Rick Scott
Why do Americans have to live with legislative decisions made nearly 90 years ago?

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When Joe Biden accused Republicans of planning to “cut” Social Security and Medicare during his State of the Union address, it was — like virtually all the other things he said — a lie. His claim was tantamount to accusing Democrats of supporting a “plan” to shut down air travel because Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez once proposed it.

The president was referring to Rick Scott’s ill-timed “12 Point Plan to Rescue America,” which included, among numerous other nonstarters, a proposal to sunset all federal spending programs every five years. The proposal, contra Biden’s contention, had no support from Republicans and nothing to do with the debt ceiling fight.

None of that means that asking Congress to reauthorize federal spending bills every few years isn’t a great idea. Why would stalwarts of “democracy” oppose revisiting spending decisions made by legislators nearly 90 years ago? No living person has ever voted on them. And though “liberals” are generally more protective of Social Security than the Bill of Rights, entitlement programs aren’t foundational governing ideas, they do not protect our natural rights, nor are they at the heart of the American project. Government dependency is, in fact, at odds with all of it.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of private-sector establishments go out of business, and yet not a single federal government program ever does. While nearly every facet of society embraces cost-saving efficiencies, the federal government perpetually grows. It is madness. Simply as a function of good governance, it would be reasonable for Congress to review the efficacy and cost of existing federal programs, and then make suggestions for reforms or elimination or — yikes — privatization. Forget entitlements. Is there any reason we shouldn’t revisit the billions spent on the obsolete Natural Resource Conservation Service (created in 1935 to help farmers deal with soil corrosion) or the Rural Electrification Administration (created in the same year, when large swaths of rural Americans did not have electricity) or the counterproductive Small Business Administration or the subsidy sucking Amtrak corporation?

Indeed, there is widespread support for Social Security — a Bismarckian import, first championed nationally by corrupt populists like Huey Long to augment retirement. One suspects this is largely because Americans have been compelled by the state to pay into the pyramid scheme. Many people build their retirements around the program. They have no choice. Compulsion is a hallmark of leftist policy, from entitlements to Obamacare to unionization to public school systems. And by forcing participation, we’ve created a generational trap. Voters have been fearmongered into believing that any reform means something is being stolen from them, when no serious proposal has ever cut existing benefits.

In the 1970s, Biden supported re-upping federal spending authorization every four years and requiring Congress to “make a detailed study of the program before renewing it.” Obviously, Biden hasn’t stuck to a single principled position in his entire career. But it is worth noting there was plenty of bipartisan support for sunsetting bills from 1970 through the 2000s — including from Ed Muskie, Jesse Helms, liberal “lion” Ted Kennedy, and George W. Bush.

Until very recently the center of both parties also agreed entitlement reform would be necessary to keep Medicare and Social Security solvent. In today’s Idiocracy, we have a president who argues that a $5 trillion spending bill costs “zero” dollars, so we’re about a zillion lightyears away from responsible governance.

If Social Security is so deeply popular — and everyone saw cowardly Republicans promise Biden they wouldn’t do anything to fix these programs that are bankrupting the country — what’s the problem? Even with the highly remote chance of a sunset law, the chances of reform would be still more remote. Look at how Washington almost perfunctorily lifts the debt ceiling. The only shared principle in D.C. is risk aversion.

Still, if Congress were automatically impelled to vote on existing law, it would create more political space to at least suggest changes and perhaps revisit mistakes. If nothing else, Congress would be marginally more “productive” if it was forced to occasionally deal with existing problems rather than concocting new ways to create them.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, a nationally syndicated columnist, a Happy Warrior columnist at National Review, and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. He has appeared on Fox News, C-SPAN, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, ABC World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News and radio talk shows across the country. Follow him on Twitter, @davidharsanyi.

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Today’s TWO Politically INCORECT Cartoons by A.F. Branco


A.F. Branco Cartoon – Oh, the Terror

A.F. BRANCO on September 15, 2021 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-oh-the-terror/

G.W. Bush spoke out against Trump supporters at the 9/11 ceremony lumping them in with Islamic Terrorism.

America’s Taliban
Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2021.

Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 –  $5.00 –  $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Chief of Shaft

A.F. BRANCO on September 16, 2021 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-chief-of-shaft/

If General Milley went behind Trump’s back to China and his officers to undermine him, that is treason.

General Milley Insubordination
Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2021.

Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 –  $5.00 –  $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.

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Political

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George W. Bush Sends Message to Afghanistan War Veterans, Calls on Biden Admin to Take Action


Reported By Jack Davis  August 17, 2021

Read more at https://www.westernjournal.com/george-w-bush-sends-message-afghanistan-war-veterans-calls-biden-admin-take-action/

Former President George W. Bush issued a statement Monday expressing “deep sadness” over the debacle in Afghanistan. Bush was president when America launched Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan to hunt down those responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Last month, in a rare display of comment on the policies of a successor, he said he disagreed with President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw all military troops from Afghanistan, according to The Washington Post. Bush said he was “afraid Afghan women and girls are going to suffer unspeakable harm” as a result of the withdrawal.

“I think the consequences are going to be unbelievably bad. And I’m sad. Laura and I spent a lot of time with Afghan women. And they’re scared,” he said,

“I think about all the interpreters and people that helped — not only U.S. troops, but NATO troops — and they’re just, it seems like they’re just going to be left behind to be slaughtered by these very brutal people,” Bush said.

“And it breaks my heart.”

On Monday, he said in his statement that he and former first lady Laura Bush “have been watching the tragic events unfolding in Afghanistan with deep sadness. Our hearts are heavy for both the Afghan people who have suffered so much and for the Americans and NATO allies who have sacrificed so much,” he said, according to a statement sent by the Bush Center.

Bush said no ally should be left behind.

“The Afghans now at the greatest risk are the same ones who have been on the forefront of progress inside their nation. President Biden has promised to evacuate these Afghans, along with American citizens and our allies,” he said.

“The United States government has the legal authority to cut the red tape for refugees during urgent humanitarian crises. And we have the responsibility and the resources to secure safe passage for them now, without bureaucratic delay. Our most stalwart allies, along with private NGOs, are ready to help,” Bush added.

Amid scenes of panic from Kabul, Bush said that with the American military in charge, there is hope for the best possible outcome.

“Laura and I are confident that the evacuation efforts will be effective because they are being carried out by the remarkable men and women of the United States Armed Forces, diplomatic corps, and intelligence community,” the statement said.

Bush then added a statement to veterans and service members.

“Many of you deal with wounds of war, both visible and invisible. And some of your brothers and sisters in arms made the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror. Each day, we have been humbled by your commitment and your courage,” he said.

Bush sought to validate the sacrifice of the more than 2,000 Americans who died and the more than 20,000 wounded in Afghanistan.

“You took out a brutal enemy and denied Al Qaeda a safe haven while building schools, sending supplies, and providing medical care. You kept America safe from further terror attacks, provided two decades of security and opportunity for millions, and made America proud. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts and will always honor your contributions,” he said.

Bush, who was president in America’s dark days of adversity, said hope always endures.

“In times like these, it can be hard to remain optimistic. Laura and I will steadfastly remain so. Like our country, Afghanistan is also made up of resilient, vibrant people. Nearly 65 percent of the population is under twenty-five years old. The choices they will make for opportunity, education, and liberty will also determine Afghanistan’s future,” he said.

The former president then quoted Sakena Yacoobi of the Afghan Institute of Learning, who helped open schools for girls, as saying, “The Taliban cannot crush a dream. We will prevail, even if it takes longer than we wanted it to.”

“Laura and I, along with the team at the Bush Center, stand ready as Americans to lend our support and assistance in this time of need. Let us all resolve to be united in saving lives and praying for the people of Afghanistan,” the statement said in closing.

Jack Davis, Contributor

Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.

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